Triggered and True

Latest Episodes:

(Ep. 12) There’s more to your story: experience a new life today as you navigate your protectors. Dec 03, 2021

Show notes

What if the very thing you're most praised for is actually protecting a wound nobody sees?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise dig into protectors — the coping mechanisms we picked up as children to feel safe, and quietly kept using for the rest of our lives.

Some look terrible from the outside: addiction, self-sabotage. But many look wonderful, people pleasing, over-responsibility, performance, staying happy for everyone else, and those are the ones that earn us applause while slowly wearing us down.

Laura compares a protector to a childhood blankie: familiar, comforting, and something you can't just rip out of someone's hands. That's why she refuses to tell anyone to simply stop — you can't remove the covering without caring for the pain underneath it.

She and Brian talk through the unmet needs that drive protectors (not feeling like enough, not feeling heard), why fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are all attempts to be okay, and the exhausting truth at the center: protectors have to be maintained manually, while real healing runs automatically.

Plus, a tender turn — how to help a child who fawns, without shaming the sweetness out of them.

In this episode:

🔹 What protectors are — and why the ones society praises can be the hardest to see

🔹 The blankie principle: why Laura never tells anyone to just stop their protector 🔹 The unmet needs underneath: not feeling like enough, and not feeling heard

🔹 Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn — how each one is your attempt to be okay

🔹 Why protectors must be maintained manually — and how healing becomes automatic

🔹 How to help a child who fawns, by treating it like any other trigger and finding the tender emotion

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 11) Our Privilege in Pain: What You Haven’t Heard About Our True Self Nov 05, 2021

Show notes

What if you've spent your whole life trying to be good, and being good was never the point?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise pick up the conversation about true self and go straight at the quote that stops people in their tracks: what you do matters, but who you are matters more.

It's a phrase Laura says triggers people — especially those who've spent their lives working hard to be good — and unpacking why it offends us reveals exactly where shame has been running the show.

Laura explains why religion's whole system runs on good and evil, why Jesus dying for us while we were still getting it wrong is the clearest proof that who we are is separate from what we do, and why "just try harder" never works — because self-control is a fruit of connection, not something you can white-knuckle into being.

Brian shares a real, recent example: getting overcharged by a service company, snapping at the rep on the phone, and discovering the difference between apologizing for what you did and apologizing for who you are.

Plus: why behavior management is really a way to avoid being vulnerable, and how "soapboxes" quietly reveal our own pain.

In this episode:

🔹 "What you do matters, but who you are matters more" — why this quote offends us, and what that reveals

🔹 Why trying harder never works — and how self-control is a fruit of connection, not force of will

🔹 Behavior management as a hiding place: dealing with the symptom so you don't have to be vulnerable

🔹 Brian's overcharge story: the difference between apologizing for what you did and for who you are

🔹 Soapboxes and blame: how being "right" can be a way to displace pain onto someone else

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 10) 3 Practical Ways to Experience Joy and Heal Pain Oct 08, 2021

Show notes

What if there's an entire world inside you — an extraordinary person the striving covered up? A person who's simply waiting to be discovered.

In this milestone 10th episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise finally arrive at what the entire series has been building toward: your true self.

Everything before this — the triggers, the shame, the pain, the unmet needs — cleared the ground for this moment, because you can't reconnect with who you were until you've comforted the pain that covered you up.

Laura shares a story that reframes self-worth entirely: a weekend alone she dreaded, and what she felt God tell her on the drive home — "you're going to be with yourself for all of eternity, so you'd better get to know yourself."

From there, she and Brian make the daunting task of self-discovery simple and practical: why we're raised to answer "what do you want to be?" instead of "who are you," how "joy triggers" reveal your true characteristics just as pain triggers reveal your wounds, and why learning to value your own heart finally lets you receive love from everyone else.

In this episode:

🔹 Why true self is the goal — and why you can't shortcut to it without first comforting the pain

🔹 Laura's "eternity" story — the reframe that changed how she saw her own worth

🔹 Joy triggers vs. pain triggers: how the things that light you up reveal who you actually are

🔹 Why we know how to answer "what do you do" but not "who are you" — and how to build that muscle

🔹 How valuing your own heart makes you able to finally open the gate and receive love

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 9) The Knowledge of Good and Evil: Why Managing Our Shame Isn’t the Solution Sep 24, 2021

Show notes

What if the endless pressure to be "good" is quietly doing as much damage as anything "bad" you've ever done?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise take on the idea Laura calls the root of nearly all anxiety and depression: the knowledge of good and evil.

Going back to the Garden of Eden, they unpack why the problem was never just knowing evil — it's the exhausting, never-ending chase to be good enough, the push-and-pull that keeps us trapped on the shame cycle and disconnected from who we really are.

Laura shares the distinction that changes everything: sin wasn't the only problem in the garden; shame was there too. Nobody drove Adam and Eve into the bushes; they hid on their own.

She and Brian explore God's first question — "Who told you that you were evil?" — how children start out blissfully free of this weight before becoming "shame conscious," and why so much of our striving is really a rat race to quiet the voice that says you'll never be enough.

Along the way: what Laura learned to work with men in a purity group, and why real forgiveness starts not with the offense, but with the wound underneath.

In this episode:

🔹 Why the knowledge of "good" can be as damaging as the knowledge of evil — and how it fuels the shame cycle

🔹 "Who told you that you were evil?" — why shame, not sin, is what kept Adam and Eve hiding

🔹 How children begin free and slowly become "shame conscious" — and what that reveals about your true self

🔹 What weeping men in a purity group discovered: your struggle was never who you are

🔹 Why "no one can hurt you" the way you think — and how present pain is usually old pain being pressed on

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 8) What’s Your Body Telling You with Courtney Lancaster & Krystal Freise Sep 10, 2021

Show notes

What if your racing heart, your tight chest, your panic — weren't signs something's wrong with you, but your body trying to protect you?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise open up the studio to two guests: life coach Courtney Lancaster and trauma-sensitive yoga teacher Crystal Freise.

Together they have a conversation about how triggers and trauma live in the body.

Each of them came to this work through their own "great awakening," and together they explore why emotional pain we never processed doesn't just stay in our minds — it gets stored in our bodies until it finds a way out.

Drawing on the science behind The Body Keeps the Score, polyvagal theory, and somatic experiencing, the group unpacks how your nervous system constantly scans for safety or danger, and why unfelt emotions get stored like a "trash can" that eventually overflows.

They also dive into why every triggered response — fight, flight, or shutdown — is actually your body brilliantly trying to keep you safe.

Crystal shares how trauma-sensitive yoga and mindfulness help you safely reconnect with your body, and Laura ties it all back to the heart of the Compassion Method: your triggers aren't the enemy; they're messengers.

In this episode:

🔹 What's physically happening in your body during a trigger — fight, flight, and the shutdown response

🔹 Why emotions you could never feel get stored in the body until the "trash can" overflows

🔹 How your nervous system learns that disconnection equals danger — and why emotional attunement matters so much

🔹 Trauma-sensitive yoga and mindfulness: gentle ways to befriend your body instead of fighting it

🔹 The reframe that changes everything: your trigger isn't a malfunction, it's your body protecting you

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 7) Laura’s Personal Journey Through Grief Aug 27, 2021

Show notes

What if the most painful chapter of your life became the thing that helped you heal, and helped thousands of others heal too?

In this deeply personal episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan shares the story at the very heart of the Compassion Method: the illness and loss of her husband, Jeff.

Over a year of caregiving through ALS, raising four young children, and grieving both before and after his death, Laura discovered the truths that would eventually become her life's work.

Twelve years later, she and co-host Brian Freise walk through that journey with honesty and hope.

Laura talks about Jeff's remarkable faith — getting up every day believing he'd be healed, finishing a book three days before he died — and the two things she felt God gave her at the diagnosis that carried her through: that she'd always be okay, and never have to worry.

She and Brian open up the parts of grief we rarely say out loud: the loneliness even inside a strong marriage, the "compounded grief" where a present loss reopens childhood wounds, the shame that surrounds certain kinds of death, and the freedom of learning there's no right or wrong way to grieve.

If you're carrying a loss of any kind, this one is for you.

In this episode:

🔹 Laura's story — caregiving through her husband's ALS, and the grief that began at the diagnosis

🔹 Why all loss is grief: the job, the marriage, the season — not only death — and why you shouldn't measure your pain against anyone else's

🔹 "Compounded grief": how a present loss can reopen wounds from childhood, and why that makes grief hit harder

🔹 The shame surrounding certain losses, including suicide and overdose, and why someone is never defined by how they died

🔹 Why there's no secret formula for grief, and how making your world small, one hour at a time, can carry you through

This episode touches on loss, caregiving, and grief, including a compassionate discussion of suicide. If you're struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or a local support line.

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 6) The Remote Control Exercise Aug 13, 2021

Show notes

What if you could put your worst trigger on pause, and finally hear what it's trying to tell you?

In this episode of Triggered & True, emotional health consultant Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise walk through one of the most practical tools in the Compassion Method: the Remote Control Exercise.

It's a step-by-step way to move through a trigger at the moment and not to fix yourself, but to comfort the wound underneath and reopen your heart to receiving love.

Laura uses the image of a puppy with a hurt paw. The puppy, who's normally friendly, now nips at the very hand trying to help. This explains why we push comfort away exactly when we need it most.

Then she and Brian walk the five steps: pause the person or situation to stop the blame cycle, get honest about your big reaction emotions, funnel down to the tender ones underneath (it always comes back to sad, scared, or lonely), name which of the needs you're missing in that moment, and finally bring yourself compassion — before you "unpause" and step back into the world.

In this episode:

🔹 The Remote Control Exercise — a five-step way to walk yourself through a trigger in real time

🔹 The "puppy with the hurt paw": why we bite the hand that tries to comfort us

🔹 Why step one is pause — how stopping the blame cycle makes everything after it possible

🔹 Getting under the anger: how big reaction emotions funnel down to sad, scared, or lonely

🔹 Why this is discovery, not a fix — and why Laura waits before teaching it to anyone

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 5) The 10 Gifts -Tangibly Meeting Unmet Needs Jul 30, 2021

Show notes

What if the emptiness you carry isn't a flaw but a list of gifts you were never given?

In this episode of Triggered & True, emotional health consultant Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise introduce one of the most practical and moving pieces of the Compassion Method: the 10 Gifts.

These are the core emotional needs every child receives from birth to age 12 — and the ones whose absence quietly shapes how we trigger for the rest of our lives.

Laura explains why she calls them gifts instead of needs, why unmet needs (our "lack") drive as much of our pain as anything done to us, and why getting those needs met matters more than simply making the hurt go away.

Then she and Brian walked through all ten, from "I see you" and "I hear you" to protection, provision, affection, and "you are enough."

The most moving aspect is the underlying hope: even if parents couldn't provide these gifts, people can still receive them, often from unexpected sources like a coach, a coworker, or a friend.

In this episode:

🔹 The 10 Gifts every child needs from ages 0–12 — and why Laura frames them as gifts, not needs

🔹 Pain vs. unmet need: why your "lack" drives your triggers as much as anything that was done to you

🔹 Why getting your needs met matters more than making the pain go away — and what medication is really for

🔹 The self-inventory you can actually do: honestly asking which gifts you did and didn't receive

🔹 The hope at the center: how the gifts your parents couldn't give can still be received from others

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 4) What Compassion Is And What It Is Not... Jun 04, 2021

Show notes

What if the compassion you keep waiting for from everyone else has to start with you?

In this episode of Triggered & True, emotional health consultant Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise dig into what Brian calls the "X factor" of emotional health: compassion. But before they get to what it is, Laura clears away what it isn't — because most of us have been mistaking pity and sympathy for the real thing, and the difference changes everything.

Laura draws the line clean: pity sees you as the worst thing that's happened to you, sympathy feels sorry for you, but compassion feels with you.

She points to Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus — grieving alongside people even though he knew he was about to raise him — as the picture of meeting someone right where they are instead of rushing to fix them.

Then she and Brian turn the lens inward to the line she's known for: "Self-compassion begins with you and ends in a party" — why being with your own pain finally tenderizes your heart and lets everyone else back in.

In this episode:

🔹 What compassion is NOT — how pity and sympathy quietly keep us from truly being with people

🔹 "I feel for you" vs. "I feel with you" — the difference that separates sympathy from genuine compassion

🔹 Why Jesus wept at Lazarus's tomb — and what it teaches about meeting people in their pain

🔹 The parenting trap of skipping past a child's feelings to "fix" them with logic — and what to do instead

🔹 "Self-compassion begins with you and ends in a party" — why being with your own pain opens the gate for others

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 2) Shame Vs. Identity Jun 04, 2021

Show notes

What if the problem was never that you're broken — it's that you believed you were?

In this episode of Triggered & True, emotional health consultant Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise get to the root beneath the roots: shame, and the difference between what you do and who you are.

If you've spent your life trying to "get better," Laura offers a reframe that gives genuine relief — the goal was never to get fixed, because you were never broken to begin with.

Working through the story of the Garden of Eden, Laura unpacks where shame really comes from — not the mistake, but the hiding — and the question she finds most powerful in the whole story: "Who told you that you were evil?"

She and Brian explore why chasing "good" keeps us trapped on the same seesaw as "bad," how shame gets quietly introduced in childhood "good boy," "bad girl", and the simple truth at the center of it all: what you do matters, but you matter more.

In this episode:

🔹 Why "getting better" can't be the goal — and how a fix-it mindset quietly feeds shame

🔹 Shame's origin in the Garden of Eden — and why the hiding, not the mistake, did the actual damage

🔹 "Who told you that you were evil?" — the question that reframes how we picture God's response to us

🔹 Shame says what you do is who you are; identity says you are who you are regardless of what you do

🔹 How shame gets taught in childhood — and the countercultural truth that "what you do matters, but you matter more"

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

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